Diary of a Soldier - The Experiences and Musings of Jack Whittaker
by Arnaud Chevalier Jarreau
Summary: Jack Whittaker, a rookie soldier, fresh off the cruiser. What awaits him on the terrible landmasses of Auraxis?
1. Chapter 1

Auraxis.

Fucking cold, fucking hot, there's really no middle ground. Whatever made this planet, be it the Vanu's piddly aliens, or some soldiers' view of God, it had a sick sense of humor. It created an insane explosive extravaganza that takes place over this planet's battered excuses for continents. But once a man ships out of his nice comfy starship quarters, he's expected to put up with this hellhole, and nothing in any of the logs tells it anything like it is.

My name's Jack Whittaker, and whosoever finds this journal when my DNA Sequence is finally corrupted is one lucky son of a bitch for not getting shot, squatting underneath that windowsill or leaning on that tree branch while some ridiculous aerial battle takes place above you. You're probably new to this whole soldier thing, probably pulled out of reserve-reserve units to keep this stupid fight going. I'm here to tell you, this isn't a walk in the park. That's a lot of lead flying around out there, and if you think you can take it, be my guest. The Terran Republic always needs plenty of meat shields.

-Jack Whittaker

August 23, 2846

Assigned Third Infantry Division,

Auraxis, Esamir


	2. Chapter 2

_Excerpt from the Diary of Jack Whittaker_

June 23, 2845

It's not enough that those blue-clad demons had to go to war, but _I _was drafted! Me! Little Jack Whittaker, Quartermaster of the Orion! Not a single metric _ounce_ of military training! I was sitting in my office adding up cargo weight when they practically kicked down the door to drag me to my quarters. "Pack your gear, scrub. You're dropping planetside," Hmph. Barge into a man's office and order him around like that, no wonder the New Conglomerate hates them! Or "us" now, as it seems. They picked up every man and woman in fighting condition, smartened us up, and loaded us into a couple-dozen of their smelly drop-pods. All that's left is to strap myself in.

_Shoulder-Mounted Camera of Jack Whittaker - Text-Based Derivative_

_Tap-tap _"Is this thing on? Good. I can see the infrared light in my snoopers."

I had landed somewhere in the snowy wastelands of that sub-continent they call "Esamir", with orders only to report to Captain Townsend of the Third Infantry Division. Not a whole lot to go on. Especially with a mere twenty hours of training, and a few minutes of sleep on the way down.

I flicked my head to raise the snoopers and get my first good look at the countryside. Bad idea. Focus the light coming off that snow by just a little bit, and I'd be a smoking pair of boots it was so intense. I brought down the leaded snoopers once again, and caught my bearings. The map in the corner of my snoopers said I was in someplace called "Snowshear Watchtower", and a couple of blinking blue dots coming toward - _TUKKATUKKATUKKA-PING!_

A bullet pinged off my armor, zinging off into the snow in front of me. I barely had to think before instinct set in. _Flight_ was the definite option running through my head, so I ran. Little Jack Whittaker ran like a mouse who saw a cat guarding the cheese over a rise, behind a satellite dish of some sort, and over a pipe. Spying the distinctive red and white of Terran Republic armor, I hopped over a stack of barrels, shots whizzing over my shoulder, and bowled over the poor man ducked behind them.

"Get off me, ya fat lout!" the man shouted. Too late, I realized the man I had knocked into was the one and only Captain Townsend. I recovered admirably, I'd like to think.

In the best crouched-attention I could muster, I threw a brief salute, saying "Private Jack Whittaker reporting for duty with the 3rd Infantry Division of the Terran Republic Army, sah!"

The Captain shoved me away, nearly from behind the safety of the barrels, and looked me over. "Did they teach you anything about jump-jet assaults up there?" He asked.

"Only how to use them, sir." I replied.

He rubbed his face grimly, leaving a black smudge from the gunpowder on his glove. "Well, you're in for a crash course. Follow me." He stood up at this, just barely covered, and shouted into the comm channel: "Alpha! Charlie! Jump down into A from above! Bravo, bring your heavies in on the ground floor!" And he did a beautiful swan dive off the platform.

Panicked, I ran to the railing to see him activate his jump-jets and glide gracefully into the open door of the balcony, just as a dozen other bodies glided down and yet another six run into the ground floor, guns streaming the red trails of tracers.

I followed, if a bit less gracefully. Well, more like a baby bird trying to fly. I fell face-first off of the railing and landed heavily on the balcony. I straightened up and looked around to make sure no one had seen. _TUKKATUKKA _Well, someone had seen, and I rushed through the doorway to find a crowd of soldiers, including Captain, exchanging high-fives and clapping each other on the back. A second passed, and a large icon appeared at the top of my snoopers: "FACILITY CAPTURED: SNOWSHEAR WATCHTOWER" and that's when I realized: we just won the facility.

Captain walked over to me and shook my hand. "Welcome to the Third Infantry Division. Congrats."

Jack Whittaker,

April 24, 2846

Assigned Third Infantry Division,

Auraxis, Esamir


End file.
